A Paranormal Night
Story by: Navy Blue and TLR
It was to be Starsky's first evening back at work following his capture by the Marcus cult at the zoo. I knocked on his door, but didn't hear anything, so I knocked again.
No response came back, so I put my ear to the door and knocked a third time.
"Starsk? You in there? We're already an hour late for Dobey's meeting."
His car was parked on the street, so I knew he was home.
"Star…"
My voice trailed as I heard his voice, muffled, incoherent, coming from the living room.
I took the extra key he'd given me and opened his door, finding him tossing and turning on the sofa.
"Hey," I said as I rushed to him and took him by the shoulders. "Wake up, Starsk. It's me."
His eyes came open, then he blinked as his eyes hunted around the room.
"Hutch?"
"Right here. Some dream, huh?"
He took in a deep breath and I helped him sit up. Then I reached for a small glass of water on the coffee table and handed it to him.
"You okay, Starsk?"
"Peachy keen," he said, then drained the water.
"It helps if you talk about your dreams."
"Forget it," he said jumping to his feet, sudden energy and bravado now, or was he just trying to avoid the conversation? "Give me a sec, then let's get out of here."
"It's only been three days," I said as I drove us to the station. "Maybe you need a little more time."
"I'm fine."
"Actually, you look a little peaked."
"Well how would you look if you were-"
"If you were what?"
He started to answer, but then just shook his head in the negative.
"Starsk, we need each other to be 100% out here. You know that. It isn't my safety I'm concerned about. It's yours. If you lose focus-"
He laughed a little with the turn of his head toward the passenger window.
"Lose focus," he repeated.
I stopped the Torino and got out, rounded the front of the car, opened his door, and pulled him out by the front of his jacket. "You're withdrawn, moody, and distracted. I know you've been through some kind of hell, but you won't let me in."
"What, you gonna hit me? Go ahead."
I started to shake some sense into him, but stopped short. I couldn't.
"Doctor at the hospital," he said looking away. "Said I should face my fear."
I knew what some of his fears were about, but not all of them.
"I'm scared too, Starsk," I heard myself whispering, and pulled him a step closer to me, maybe a little rougher than I intended, but it was more from desperation and love than anger. "I'm afraid something is happening to you, and I'll lose you. You're the best cop I know. The best friend I have. On my way out to the zoo, I didn't know if I'd find you dead or alive. You're alive, and I want to keep you that way. Healthy and whole."
He looked down and gave a small nod. Voice barely above a mumble he said, "Let's go to the zoo."
We rode in silence as I drove us to the location.
You take care of Starsk, Huggy had told me at the hospital. But who's gonna take care of you?
Near dark when we got there.
I shifted into Park and turned off the motor. Looking around at the scenery, everything seemed dreamlike. Crime scene tape fluttered from one of the trees, and I closed my eyes against the mental image of the would-be blood sacrifice of my partner.
Did that really happen? Was that really real?
The place was hauntingly quiet. Not even the sound of a bird or cicada. It was as if time stood still, awaiting the return of another sacrifice, maybe even my partner, even though most of the cult members had been arrested and the remnants scattered. Murders had happened here, and it may sound absurd, but maybe the ground got a taste for blood, and now it was a living thing hungry for more.
I looked over at him.
"Ready, Starsk? I'll go with you."
He looked around the abandoned landscape of the zoo. Not many people can tell when my partner is afraid, unless he verbalizes it like a child, as he will sometimes do. He hides it well. But not from me.
"We'll need flashlights," he said.
And maybe a gun was his next thought, but he didn't say it. He knew I was still in protective mode, always in protective mode, and could handle anything that required the use of a gun.
As we got out of the car and walked up to the altar where my partner had been bound for the sacrificial ceremony, a breeze picked up, blowing against our clothes.
He stumbled against me and I caught his arm.
"Okay?" I asked.
He looked around, steadied himself, then nodded.
We kept going, until we found an entrance to the underground caverns. Then we turned on the flashlights, letting the beams guide our way down the stone steps.
Signs of their unholy cult activity still remained: Robes, torches, candles, ropes, knives, bone fragments, etcetera. Most of it had been taken into evidence, some for Starsky's case, some for cold cases. but the cops didn't collect everything.
We made our way through the bends and turns, over rocks and through tunnel-like caverns, until we reached an area that made Starsky freeze.
"What?" I asked gently.
He stared as if transfixed at the dark opening of another cave, and pointed.
"There," he said quietly, and clutched at his stomach as if feeling phantom pain from the poison the cultists had given him.
The pain took him to his knees, as his pain took me to mine. I kept my arm around him.
"You're okay, Starsk. I'm right here."
His breathing became short and quick, hyperventilating.
"Easy," I said. "Slow, deep breaths."
He was on all fours, trying to calm himself while I rubbed circles on his back.
"See him, Hutch? He's there."
I looked around. "See who?"
"Marcus. Right there."
I pulled my gun and walked around, looking and listening.
Now why would you be pulling your gun out for a man locked securely behind bars?
"No one is here," I told him, but looked around nevertheless, just to make sure. "Maybe a couple of teenagers are using it as a crash pad, but buddy, you didn't see Marcus."
The sound of scuffling footsteps and jingling of keys sounded in the recesses of the black cavern.
Starsky and I looked at each other, his eyes saying I told you.
I had to know who was making the sounds, to ease Starsky's mind, and to see if I was right about teenagers loafing here.
Starsky wasn't about to let me go in there alone. With great effort, hand still to his stomach, he moved over closer to me and pulled his own gun.
"Hutch, I don't care what you say, I saw him."
My dreams always came true. Always came true.
Marcus' words to me. Starsky never heard them, yet we were feeling them now. Had the dark lord spoken them in the blackness of the caverns just now, or was it a figment of my imagination? Could Starsky's moods and apparent hallucinations be caused by the poison he'd ingested? Or was it something beyond the natural world? A world where lower forces do exist and where innocent blood is shed for a mesmeric master?
The metallic clinking sounded again far back in the shadows, and my partner broke my heart, as he does every now and then. He clutched the sleeve of my jacket and hid his eyes.
Was I hallucinating too?
"Suh…Starsk."
My voice was barely there. I looked, and then Starsky looked, and we both saw Simon Marcus limping toward us from the deepness of the cave, a hand to his stomach too.
This can't be. He's locked up.
But the shackle and chain around his ankle would only allow him to come to the opening of the cave, and no closer, where his specter glowed amber in the waning light of our flashlights.
Starsky raised his head from my shoulder and looked at him.
"You didn't win," he whispered bravely.
But instead of the serene, self-possessed guru I'd encountered in an interrogation room, I was looking at a man whose countenance was wary, weary, and defeated.
"Help me," he implored with an outstretched hand covered in grime. His clothes, basic workpants and khaki shirt, were tattered and soiled, his hair and beard shorter than Marcus', and matted and disheveled.
I instinctively moved in front of Starsky as I stepped closer to the man.
Marcus but not Marcus.
"Seth," he whispered in his parched voice. "Simon is my twin brother."
Yet another victim of Marcus and his cult.
Starsky stayed with Seth while I ran topside to radio for an ambulance and a couple of detectives familiar with our case.
After I relayed to Dobey who we discovered, I went back down to be with Starsky, and found the two of them talking in low tones, Seth telling him how Marcus, from his cell, had ordered his own brother imprisoned upon sentencing for refusing to become a follower, and Starsky telling Seth that he was going to be okay.
Sometime later, after the ambulance had taken Seth to the hospital, and Captain Dobey had left, it was just me and Starsky again.
The caves grew silent once more, and our flashlights flickered as if they were losing power. Still, Starsky and I stood side by side as he began to talk in the darkness, telling me of the torturous things that had happened here while he was their prisoner.
He was denying Marcus, defying his fear, and reclaiming himself.
My dream came true too, Simon. Of a happy and healthy partner, ready to take on the world again.
the end
